Orconomics: A Satire (The Dark Profit Saga Book 1)

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Heraldin Strummons, the party's bard, who is fairly good with a sword, much better than he is with a lute. A Casanova Wannabe, whose Double Entendres annoy pretty much everyone. Has a former past as a thie... acquisition specialist.

At the beginning of your turn you’ll roll the forecast dice to determine the active industry; the industry which players will be working in that round. Profits & Losses Comedy is the velvet glove within which a skilled author can conceal an iron fist of tragedy. Pike’s tale – like his ragged collection of heroes – grows up and becomes more serious as a tangled conspiracy is unravelled. Pike’s role-play gaming past shows through in the monsters he recruits and the villains he casts, but there is a dungeon master’s skill at work in the way he weaves these familiar ingredients – with other threads – into a story that is fresh and appealing. The various races (orcs, elves, gnomes etc) stand in as rough parallels for social and racial strata in the real world and a simple (but good) message about not oppressing "others" is delivered.Ragged chipmunks and venomous snakes alike followed in Kaitha's footsteps, swaying with the melody of her song. She gently patted the nose of a savage-looking deer, the kind of grizzled doe that a soft puma from the foothills wouldn't stand a chance against. In the midst of it, two traders in others’ fortunes and misfortunes reminded me of the eminence grises Randolph and Mortimer from Trading Places.

An unusual printed variant involving Detarr Ur'Mayan and a possessed rat. It can be found after the Fantasy World Map, the glossary, and the author's thanks in the first book. At any point during the game, on your turn or not, you may fulfill the demands of a quest card. If that happens you show the other players, then place the quest card in front of you. Each completed quest card is worth 1 point. Since you don’t have enough company tokens to win the game, you’ll have to complete at least 1 quest to be in the running. Unskilled, but Strong: Laruna has incredible reserves of magic. However, she is terrible at actually weaving spells, preferring to unleash raw fire energy on her enemies. She starts to get better under the noctomancer's tutelage. J. Zachary Pike I felt the explanation of why Mages' robes transform was appropriate because I didn't think clothing growing buttons or changing decoration on its own …more I felt the explanation of why Mages' robes transform was appropriate because I didn't think clothing growing buttons or changing decoration on its own happens often enough in fantasy to go without explanation, and because Laruna's robes transforming foreshadows a more significant change in a mage's attire later in the series. Mysterious Past: Jynn is reluctant to be open about his past. This is because he is the son of the Evil Sorcerer Detarr Ur'Mayan, and he'd rather that remain a secret. In the second novel, it turns out he has an even bigger secret — he's an omnimancer.

The series contains examples of the following tropes:

The adventuring industry drives the economy of Arth, a world much like our own but with more magic and fewer vowels. Monsters' hoards are claimed, bought by corporate interests, and sold off to plunder funds long before the Heroes' Guild actually kills the beasts. Of course, that's a terrible arrangement for the Shadowkin; orcs, goblins, kobolds, and their ilk must apply for to become Noncombatant Paper Carriers (or NPCs) to avoid being killed and looted by heroes. Big Guy, Little Guy: Garold Flinn is a Gnome of Clan Kendrin (who are often called Tinderkin) and looks like an Elf shrunken to the size of a Dwarf (slightly shorter than a Dwarf, actually). He is a mercenary commander, who always travels with an Ogre named Brunt, who is known for his temper and strength. Flinn almost never harms anyone, preferring to let Brunt do all the maiming, which the latter does gladly. At the end, though, it's revealed that Brunt is tired of always being The Brute and has always wanted to fight for justice. See them here ◊. The Chosen One: The followers of Al'Matra believe The Prophecy of the Seventh Hero, who is destined to complete a great quest for the glory of Al'Matra. There have been multiple candidates in the past, but all of them have either died or spent their lives waiting for their quest to start. Now, Niln believes himself to be the Seventh Hero, except he has zero combat skills and no adventuring experience.

The Atoner: Duine Poldo becomes a philanthropist after leaving Goldson Baggs and starting his own investment firm Silver Guard Securities. It starts with letting Wood Gnomes live in his office, even though most consider them pests and typically call for an exterminator. Then he invites a Gnoll widow and her three cubs to live with him (he remembers her late husband from Goldson Baggs) and she becomes his invaluable assistant, while the Wood Gnomes also prove extremely useful. Eventually, he starts making plenty of money and buys up a number of apartment buildings, where the Gnoll widow settles those displaced by the recent events, who would otherwise have nowhere to turn to. Why is he The Atoner then? Because Duine realizes that many of them are in this position partly because of his actions at Goldson Baggs. Healing Hands: Solamancers can learn to weave healing spells, especially those that specialize in the "life" discipline. Unfortunately for the party, all Laruna knows how to do is make fire, which is only good for cauterizing wounds as far as healing goes. The Head of Marketing workshops this as a recruiting slogan, but the focus group points out that it's blatantly untrue for undead who are anything but created equal. It also gets them wondering what kind of undead Tyren, Detarr Ur'Mayan's right-hand-skeleton, really is. I love to find the influences in a book of other works – to see the roots on which the author has drawn. Sometimes my enthusiasm is misplaced; like an over-enthusiastic archaeologist, I conjure up links that the author will tell me were at best subconscious and more likely non-existent. But it is fun to hunt them down, nonetheless. Orconomics offered me a feast of such associative moments. For example: Then, looking at the active industry AND the two on either side, each player with a business in any of those three industries will pay out profits & losses: either losing or receiving silver based on the value displayed in the bottom left corner of the industry tile. If the crisis token is on that industry, any business on that industry tile will pay out 2 silver (more on the crisis token later).

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Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. There are multiple clans of Dwarves. The main thing all of them share is that no one has even seen any female Dwarf. Dwarves themselves are sensitive about the subject of their reproduction, so no one brings it up. Gorm tends to speak with the "standard" Scotirish accent Dwarves have in fiction with aye's, ye's, and a brogue, although the same can't be said for Fenrir Goldson. Crown of Power: Detarr Ur'mayan uses an artifact called the Crown of Iron to create and command a massive undead horde. During a conversation between Kaitha and Gorm about the dangers of heroes doing stupid things for glory, Gorm recalls a story about a well-known and highly-skilled group of heroes that were killed to a man when an inexperienced member of the crew charged into a drake roost and angered all the Acid Drakes inside.

It answers the questions: how would it be like to actually live in an old-school sword and sorcery fantasy world, with all the simplifications and contradictions of such worlds? And the answer is both hilarious and chilling. Foe-Tossing Charge: Johan single-handedly carves a path through the Cavalry of the Dead to get to Detarr Ur'Mayan in the second book. Detarr notes how predictable Johan is.The second book explains that the giltin were introduced after Dwarven alchemists perfected their craft and started producing mountains of gold, tanking their economy. Thus, the giltin are detached from the gold standard, preventing such a disaster from repeating. The Dwarven Empire still hasn't recovered. Setup is a snap. Randomize the board segments, then connect them to form a circle. Turn over 3 quest cards. Give each player their company tokens, starting capital in the form of 5 gold skulls, 3 industry cards. Each player will place two business tokens onto the board to get things moving.